Hopper car



March 20,1928.

A. U. KERNS HOPPER CAR Filed Feb. 1,. 1927 2 sneets sneez 1 Patented Mar. 20, 1928.

PATENT OFFICE.

ADIN U. KERNS, OF ALTOON A, PENNSYLVANIA.

HOPPER CAR.

Application filed February 1, 1927. senile No. 165,078.

My invention relates to hopper cars with hinged drop doors.

As hopper cars have heretofore been constructed the drop doors of the hoppers have been hinged to and close upon the endsof sheets forming the outlet orifice of the hoppers or upon reinforcing parts secured to such sheet ends but not in themselves forming a separate door frame. In such used construction difficulty has been found in properly fitting the doors to the openings and in keeping them roperly aligned to receive a sufficiently tight closure. 7 ject of my invention is to provide ahopper door frame of firm and complete structure which can be constructed as a complete article of manufacture and secured to the plate ends forming the hopper openings after it is finished. My hopper door frame is made up of an upper member, preferably a casting to which the door hinges are attached, and of side and bottom members preferably made up of a 2 bar bent into U shape and firmly attached at its ends to the top member. The top, bottom and side members however constructed are firmly secured together as a frame and are provided with rivet flanges for attaching them to the plate ends forming the mouth of the hop- D Car construction necessitates that twin hoppers should be used and in forming my door frames I secure the frames for the twin hoppers together by means of a beam firmly secured to the lower member of the twin frames and by preference I also secure the lower edges of the twin doors together I by abeam.

The nature of my improvements will be best understood as described in connection with the drawings, which illustrate a portion of a hopper car having my improved drop door frames secured to the ends of the twin hoppers and in which Y Figure 1 is a perspective view showing the twin hopper openings to which are secured the drop door frames, the doors being shown as partly open.

Figure 2 is a front elevation of the twin door frames with the drop doors secured in place and the frames secured together.

Figure 3 is an end elevation of the structure shown in Fig. 2.

The obto" form aiseat for the to Figure 4 a cross section on the line 44 of Fig. 55 Figure 5 a section on the line 55 of Fig.

2, and

Figure 6 a section on the line 6-6 of Fig.

A indicates the top member of my swing door frame. Asshown, and as preferably constructed it is formed of a. casting having a riveted flange A, an outwardly extending stiffening flange A with which are prefer ably connected the brackets A, A which form supports for the hinge pins indicated at F, which extend across the space indicated at a lying between each air of brackets Af, A. The member A is a so provided with a downwardly extending ledge indicated at A edge of the door D. :Asshown, 1themeni er; A "is also pro} vided with brackets A located at its ends and to which are attached the side members B, B, which by preference I form integral with the bottommember B the members having a general- U form and being preferably ma'de'from a rolled bar of Z section as shown, the intermediate flange b forming a seat for the door, the flange b fitting around theedges of the door when closed and the flange 12 forming a riveting flange by which the side and bottom members are attached to the ends of the plates forming the hopper;

By preference the two frames adapted for use on the twin hoppers of the car are firmly secured together by a beam, as indicated at l, a rolled L beam being conveniently used for this purpose. D,-D lndicates the doors, which are formed of sheet metal with outwardly turned flanges d. E, E indicate the hinge strips riveted to the doors andhinged on the pivot pins F. By preference, the twin doors D, D are firmly secured together by a connecting beam, as shown. Each door has riveted to its lower portion a stool, indicated at G, and these stools are connected together by a U beam H.

I indicates the sloping bottom plate of one of the hoppers. J, Fig. 4, indicates the end of the top plate forming one of the hoppers.

K, K are the side sheets making up the hoppers in connection with the top and bottom plates. L, L indicate rivets holding the sidemembers to the 11 per member. M indicate the rivets by w ich the upper member of the frame is attached to the plate J and M indicate rivets attaching the flange b to the plates K, K. M are the rivets attaching the flange b to the plate I.

It will be seen that my drop door frames are complete articles of manufacture, having all necessary stren th and permanency of construction apart rom their attachment to the plate ends of the hoppers. My frames can be attached either to new or old cars and would naturally be of a strength which would usually outlast the plates to which they are attached. My frames afiord a so cure closure in connection with the doors hinged to them and which doors by my construction may be relied upon to afford a secure closure for the hoppers under all ordinary conditions of use.

Having now described my invention, wha I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1.As' an article of manufacture a pair of drop door frames for a hopper car each comprising an upper member provided with hinge pinsupports, and. side. and lower members firmly secured to said upper member and forming with it a complete door frame, said members having rivet flanges alined to contact with the plates forming the delivery hopper of a car, in combination with a beam secured to the lower members frame, said members having rivet flanges alined to contact with the plates forming the delivery hopper of a car in combination with a beam secured to the lower members of the frames and holding them in spaced and aligned position to fit in twin delivery hoppers of a car, a pair of doors hinged on to each door frame and a beam secured to the lower portion of the doors holding them in spaced relation to each other and to the door frames.

3. A drop door frame for a hopper car comprising an upper member provided with hinge pin supports, a seat ledge for the upper edge of a door and a rivet flange for at tachment to the cross ridge sheet of the delivery hopper of a car in combination with side and bottom members formed of a Z shaped rolled section of yoke shape firmly secured to the upper member at its ends.

ADINU. KERNS. 

